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daceytheshebear · 8 months

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My Oak Leaf Dress post is getting some traction again years after it was first posted, and it got me wondering if tumblr might be more fertile groud to talk about some Arya Stark-centered analysis of mine I feel never got the attention it deserved in the westeros.org forum?

Okay, have you noticed that Arya's five chapters in AGOT have very very strong parallels to Arya’s five chapters in Feast/Dance? I've cataloged them and it blows my mind that more people aren't dissecting it. If we take into consideration that the AFFC and ADWD were supposed to one book, Arya has exactly the same amount of chapters as she had in book one, which is much less than she had in ACOK or ASOS. A pity in my opinion, as I love to read her, but I believe this is not a coincidence on Martin’s part as there seem to be several parallels between what Arya experiences in the first book and the last two. I’ll compare:

AGOT Arya I to AFFC Arya I

AGOT Arya II to AFFC Arya II

AGOT Arya III to AFFC Cat of the Canals

AGOT Arya IV to ADWD The Blind Girl

AGOT Arya V to ADWD The Ugly Little Girl

So, AGOT Arya I / AFFC Arya I: Both take place in a different setting from the other four chapters (Winterfell vs. Kings Landing for AGOT, the ship The Titan's Daughter vs. the city of Braavos in AFFC and ADWD). In both we have Arya directly interacting with two siblings, one who is two years older than her and whose place she would like to be able to occupy (Sansa with all her ladylike abilities, Denyo who is a cabin boy) and another who is older and more guarded and with whom she has important conversations about the ways of the world (Jon Snow and the talk about bastards and girls and Yorko and all the exposition about Bravosi culture). Quotes about Sansa and Denyo:

It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father.

And

Denyo had taken her up to the crow's nest once, and she hadn't been afraid at all, though the deck had seemed a tiny thing below her. I can do sums too, and keep a cabin neat. But the galleas had no need of a second boy.

In both chapters we have adults who are not really happy to be in charge of Arya, who are associated with the color grey, and who frown at Arya with similar phrasing (septa Mordane and Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys). I'll give you the quotes:

Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. "What are you talking about, children?"

And

Arya turned to find Denyo's father looming over them in his long captain's coat of purple wool. Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys wore no whiskers and kept his grey hair cut short and neat, framing his square, windburnt face. On the crossing she had oft seen him jesting with his crew, but when he frowned men ran from him as if before a storm. He was frowning now. "Our voyage is at an end," he told Arya.

In one of the chapters Arya is said to be “too skinny to hold a sword” and in the other she is “too small to man an oar”. Both chapters end with Arya entering rooms where two authority figures await for her (septa Mordane and Catelyn in her room AGOT, the kindly man and the waif inside the House of Black and White in AFFC).

AGOT Arya II / AFFC Arya II: In both chapters a long time has elapsed between Arya I and Arya II. In both chapters Arya feels very isolated from people around her (in AGOT she is mourning Mycah, angry at her father’s men who let the boy be murdered and sad that even Sansa “wouldn’t talk to her unless their father made her”, in AFFC Arya takes the other servants of the HoBaW for mutes until she hears them praying, they never talk to her and Umma, who does talk, speaks in a language she can’t understand.

In both chapters we have vivid descriptions of rich food Arya eats, which is very rare in her story because she is underfed most of the time. In both chapters Needle is discovered (in AGOT Ned sees the sword, in AFFC the waif catches Arya training).

In both chapters she has a very important conversation about lies (Arya tells her father Sansa lied about not knowing what happened at the Trident, and Ned says to her: "We all lie" and later says that some lies are “not without honor”, meanwhile the kindly man says to Arya “All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it”).

In both chapters Arya promises to obey:

“This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience… at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up." "I will," Arya vowed. She had never loved him so much as she did in that instant. "I can be strong too. I can be as strong as Robb."

In AFFC the kindly man tells Arya

“Remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If you cannot obey, you must depart." "I can obey." [...] “It takes uncommon strength of body and spirit, and a heart both hard and strong [to be a faceless man]" I have a hole where my heart should beand nowhere else to go. "I'm strong. As strong as you. I'm hard."

In Both chapters Arya is said to be beautiful (a word that is not used to describe her in any other occasion). In both words Arya explicitly refuses feminine roles (in AGOT she tells Ned she doesn’t want to be a lady, in AFFC she thinks she wanted none of the placements the kindly man offers her, with courtesans where she would “sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when [she] walks” or “marriage and children”).

In both chapters Arya uses rocks to save a part of herself: in AGOT she recounts to Ned how she had to throw stones at Nymeria for her to stop following and be saved from the Lannister men who would execute her (we hope Arya will reunite with Nymeria again), and in AFFC she hides Needle behind a loose stone step to keep it safe for later (we hope she will retrieve it at some point).

Another plot-point that repeats between the two chapters is the introduction of a teacher. Arya II in AGOT opens in a dinner scene in the Small Hall ends with the introduction of Syrio Forel in the same Small Hall, where Arya begins to learn water dancing. Syrio says “now we dance”. Arya II in AFFC starts with Arya reciting her list, and ends after the Waif becomes Arya’s teacher on the braavosi language and the lying game (she actively compares what she is learning now with the lessons she once had from Syrio) and then Arya finally leaves the temple, reciting her list like in the beginning (so both chapters start and finish “in the same place”) and saying she is “so happy she could dance”.

AGOT Arya III / AFFC Cat of the Canals: Okay so in AGOT Arya II, Arya assumes a “fake identity” for the first time ever! Tommen and Myrcella mistake her for a peasant boy, and she acts the part. In her third chapter in AFFC this is taken up to the next level and this is the first time her chapter title changes when she takes the identity of Cat. Cats! Of course, Arya II in AGOT is that one chapter that is all about cats, she talks about pursuing them and she finally kisses Balerion. She then becomes Cat in her third chapter in AFFC, and reminisces about chasing cats in the Red Keep in that chapter!

There is a sense of expanding horizons in both these chapters. Arya leaves the Red Keep for the first time in AGOT Arya III, and walks back from the Blackwater all the way to the castle. In her third AFFC chapter, Arya is exploring the city of Braavos after having finally been allowed out of the temple. She is also very cheeky in both these chapters! Arya interacting with the guards of the Red Keep is hilarious, and very similar to how she acts when being her Cat persona.

Nightmares. Arya experiences vivid, terrible nightmares in both these third chapters (and in her third chapter in ASOS). In AGOT she hears her father’s voice becoming fainter and fainter in her dreams, which some have interpreted as foreshadowing for Ned’s death and as a sign that Arya may have precognitive abilities. In AFFC it’s her mother she hears screaming. Both these chapters also explore and detail the place Arya inhabits. In AGOT Arya III the Red Keep is heavily featured, and it’s described as an “endless stone maze”. In AFFC Cat takes us all around Braavos, which of course is a “crooked city” with all its buildings made out of stone.

Daenerys is mentioned!! Illyrio and Varys discuss “the princess with child” in AGOT Arya III, and tales of “dragons hatching” reach Cat in AFFC. Daenerys isn’t mentioned in any other Arya chapters.

Retelling overheard stories features heavily in both chapters. Arya tries to convey to Ned what she overheard and is casually dismissed. In Cat of the Canals, Arya is learning to actively overhear conversations and gather information and retells them to the kindly man with caution.

Bathing is also present in both chapters. Arya usually doesn’t really enjoy bathing in ACOK and ASOS, but both in AGOT Arya III and in Cat of the Canals, on the other hands, we witness Arya disrobing and cleaning her body of her own volition, getting rid of bad smells in almost ritualized cleansing. Compare the quotes from AGOT, Arya III:

She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering.

and AFFC, Cat of the Canals:

Down in the vaults, she untied Cat's threadbare cloak, pulled Cat's fishy brown tunic over her head, kicked off Cat's salt-stained boots, climbed out of Cat's smallclothes, and bathed in lemonwater to wash away the very smell of Cat of the Canals. When she emerged, soaped and scrubbed pink with her brown hair plastered to her cheeks, Cat was gone.

One of the most important parallels in this set of chapters regards the Night’s Watch. It is in Arya III AGOT that Arya for the first ever interacts with a black brother, when she meets Yoren. Although Arya isn’t aware of it, it was Yoren’s death that made it possible for Dareon leave Eastwatch and go to Braavos in the first place, as the singer was assigned by Jon Snow to take up the role of recruiter that used to be Yoren’s. Yoren had other roles as well, including that of Arya’s protector. The first encounter she has with each of the two black brothers show us just how much Arya has changed. She thinks of Yoren:

He was stooped and ugly, with an unkempt beard and unwashed clothes. [...] The old man in his smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not seem to stop talking.

While Arya can’t stop herself from rambling to Yoren, she has learned not to share all of her thoughts by the time she meets Dareon. This is the quote:

He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it

Also, in both this chapters she goes blind! “She was blind.” That sentence shows up exactly like that, word for word, in both chapters. Of course in AFFC she actually becomes blind, while in AGOT she is only in a really really dark room. But still. The wording! And structurally speaking, while the last pair of chapters starts and finish “in the same place”, now both of these chapters start with a more light-hearted tone to then plunge into really dark territory, literally and metaphorically, as Arya hears the threats to her family whispered in the dark in AGOT and kills Dareon to then goes blind in AFFC.

AGOT Arya IV / ADWD The Blind Girl:

Considering AFFC and ADWD as one long long book, Blind Girl is Arya’s fourth chapter. Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT is the one in which she gets that all-important lesson when Syrio Forel tells her to “look with her eyes”. He also touches upon her other senses though:

“The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth."

Syrio says all that! And while Arya looks with her eyes in several moments of the story and this true seeing literally saves her life more than once, she never does explore her other senses that much… until she goes blind in ADWD. In The Blind Girl we get:

Hear, smell, taste, feel, she reminded herself. There are many ways to know the world for those who cannot see. [...] "You have five senses, learn to use the other four, you will have fewer cuts and scrapes and scabs"

Also, both chapters feature scenes where Arya in engaged in training with someone to improve her martial skills. While she practiced her needlework on her own all throughout ASOS, this is the first time she does so with someone else since Syrio in AGOT Arya IV! The way the two fights are described is incredibly similar, with the descriptions of rights and lefts and right and lefts, and the clacking sound of wood, her opponent “cheating” (coming from the “wrong” side) and there is a “sudden stinging” cut which catches her by surprise. It’s very very similar, go reread it if you don't believe me.

Another really important parallel regards skinchanging: in Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT, Arya is helpless after witnessing the horrors that took place at the Tower of the Hand. The narration tells us “she was only a little girl with a wooden stick, alone and afraid” (the wooden stick here is her practice sword). And than, to escape, she pretends she is chasing cats… “except she was the cat now”. I kid you not, this is the exact wording used. She is the cat now, and that is what empowers her to keep going. In ADWD, when Arya is most definitely LITERALLY just a little blind girl with a wooden stick, she actually skinchanges into a cat for the first time, and that is what finally empowers her against her mentor/abuser. She “becomes a cat” in both chapters

Also, it is in The Blind Girl chapter that we learn that “the Sealord is dying”, which is comparable (both from doylist’s and watsonian perspectives) to Robert Baratheon dying, exactly what happens around Arya IV. Now a bit of a stretch: in AFFC "The Merling Queen has chosen a new Mermaid to take the place of the one that drowned. She is the daughter of a Prestayn serving maid, thirteen and penniless, but lovely." I propose the new mermaid might stand in for Jeyne Poole. While the new Mermaid is the daughter of a Prestayn’s serving maid, and we know Prestayn be a noble house, Jayne is the daughter of the Stark’s steward. Petyr Baelish, who is connected with the braavosi galley The Merling King, takes charge of Jayne, who is then a twelve year-old.The “Mermaids” are actually described to be “young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who hold [the Merling Queen’s] train and do her hair”. Of course, same as the Mermaids are being trained to become courtesans, Jeyne will be trained in a brothel to become Ramsay’s bride.

AGOT Arya V / ADWD The Ugly Little Girl: Okay, so Arya V makes me sad from the very first line to the very last. The situation is hopeless, Arya is helpless. King’s Landing is unwelcoming and claustrophobic, the people range from rude to downright mean. The people of the city likely look at her with suspicious eyes, and as much as Arya has told us she loved nothing more than to be underfoot and mingle with the common people of Winterfell, the experience in King’s Landing is traumatizing, and it ends with her father beheaded. Oh joy. In A Dance with Dragons the waif describes how people will react to the ugly little girl Arya will become after she changes her face for the first time:

"Women will look away when they see you. Children will stare and point. Strong men will pity you, and some may shed a tear."

For reasons very different than a destroyed face, this sounds very similar to what Arya experiences in King’s Landing. I find the overall tone of The Ugly Little Girl chapter to be rather analogous to that of Arya V. Arya is in the HoBaW because is certain she has nowhere else to go. Life is easier now than when she was blind, but she doesn’t feel very comfortable – and yet goes through with all that is asked of her. Though not helpless anymore, she is more hopeless than ever before. She experiences physical pain and nightmares; she is questioned and constantly told she doesn’t have what it takes to be in the only place that has been a steady roof over her head in years.

Before undergoing her magical transformation in ADWD, Arya is given a tart drink. This is the quote:

She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

In AGOT Arya V, we get this:

Arya would have given anything for a cup of milk and a lemon cake,

In fact, lemons come up very scarcely in Arya’s whole story. She only thinks about the fruit in her inner monologues in Arya V and The Ugly Little Girl, both times prompted from external stimuli (there is the lemon tart she could not steal moments before she wishes for the lemon cake in AGOT, and the magical tart drink she is given in The Ugly Little Girl). The word comes up a handful of times in A Storm of Swords while Arya is in the company of Lem Lemoncloak, but the fruit not so much.

Another parallel between this pair of chapters comes in the form of Arya’s target, the binder salesman. The man Arya targets for the faceless men in ADWD is described in a way that calls back to Petyr Baelish (pointed beard, thin lips) and Yoren (a hard face, mean eyes, crooked shoulders), both of which Arya encounters in her fifth chapter in AGOT.

Eddard Starks beheading is a moment full of similarities to Arya’s “defacing” by the kindly man. This is from AGOT Arya V:

The old man shook her so hard her teeth rattled. "Shut your mouth and close your eyes, boy." Dimly, as if from far away, she heard a… a noise… a soft sighing sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once.

and this is from ADWD The Ugly Little Girl:

"Sit," the priest commanded. She sat. "Now close your eyes, child." She closed her eyes. "This will hurt," he warned her, "but pain is the price of power. Do not move."

And of course what follows her closing her eyes in AGOT hurts much more deeply than having her forehead slashed. In A Game of Thrones, Arya opens her eyes to finally recognize Yoren. He then giver her Needle back, and drags her to a doorframe where he cuts her hair to give her a new identity, that of Arry. This is the quote from Arya V:

As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head from side to side, but he had her by the hair, so strong, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears.

and this is the quote from The Ugly Little Girl:

She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper.

That's it! If you are interested in a more in-depth analysis check my original post from (five!!) years ago .

#arya stark #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a feast for crows #a dance with dragons #book!arya #arya stark meta #a game of thrones

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ilynpilled · 1 year

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what i find pretty interesting about a lot of jaime theories is that there is often an assumption that he will remain completely unchanged by what is about to happen in winds. like when it comes to theorizing about big choices down the line. i am not buying him not being severely affected by the arc there. stoneheart seems to be treated like a little side quest before we can put jaime back where he needs to be with absolutely zero consideration of how significant it could be in impacting jaime’s outlook on a lot of things. like what exactly is the purpose of it in his story? affc & adwd leaves him off as very conflicted about a lot of things. his final dream with joanna where he is missing the golden hand feels like a statement on the major dichotomy that his arc was interrogating recently. to me it implies that he is obviously no “goldenhand the just”, and that reputation in general feels like a delusional dream that he cannot have, nor is he his violent and grotesque two handed self that is analogous to the mountain (ntm the anti parallels between him and the mountain in adwd) or the smiling knight (the golden hand is not just about his dreams of honor & glory, in the subtext it also feels like a recreation of his past self, something to fill up the hole left by his cursed hand, it is connected to revenge and violence in a plethora of ways throughout his narrative, other than that obvious violent cersei & moonboy/pia & mountain dream, in asos before he even got it he fantasized about it ripping vargo hoat’s throat out—and we see how in feast revenge loses its savor to him entirely when he actually sees the brutality that happened to hoat). lsh is set up as a pretty significant confrontation. other than being confronted with his darkest sins and the monster created by the lannister regime in a direct way, revenge vs forgiveness vs mercy is also a theme inherent to undead cat and her role in the story… concepts pretty relevant to jaime atm

#jaime lannister #valyrianscrolls

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bluelocksource · 9 months

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Otoya Eita’s trivia (source: twt & Egoist Bible).

☆ Character's colour: Bright green.

☆ Weapons: Off-the-ball movement and agility.

☆ Nickname: ‘Ninja’.

☆ Birthday: 3rd December.

☆ Current age: 17 (3rd year of high school)

☆ Zodiac: Sagittarius.

☆ Birthplace: Aichi Prefecture.

☆ Family: Father. Mother. Older sister. Himself. Younger sister.

☆ Current height: 177 cm.

☆ Dominant foot: Right foot.

☆ Blood type: O.

☆ Starts playing football: At age 6.

☆ Team before joining BLUE LOCK: Kirigakure Academy Soccer Club.

☆ Motto: "Step up or step aside." **

☆ Favorite food: Churros. “It tastes great.”

☆ Disliked food: Pickles. “It doesn’t taste great."

☆ Favorite animal: Phoenix. “It is a flaming bird.”

☆ Favorite season: Summer. "Do I need a reason?"

☆ Favorite football player: Minamino Takumi.

☆ Favorite music: He likes listening to neo city pop genre.

☆ Favorite manga: Moteki. “It’s top-tier, no objection.”

☆ Favorite movie: Home Alone. “The unbeatable Christmas movie.”

☆ Favorite TV show: FNS Kayousai & Music Station Special Superlive. “I can get senselessly hyped up.”

☆ Favorite celebrity: Aso Kumiko. “I’m seriously dying!”

☆ Ideal type: Bright and honest woman. (don’t count on it, he’ll change it soon).

☆ Hobby: Tour around TDR (Tokyo Disney Resort). “Riding Tower of Terror at DisneySea is a must!”

☆ Mushroom shoots vs Bamboo shoots: “I only eat the chocolate part of the mushroom. I’ll give the rest to you.”

☆ What goes best with rice : A cute girl. “I like watching girls who eats rice deliciously.”

☆ What makes him happy: Something exciting.

☆ What makes him upset: Something boring/depressing.

☆ What he thinks his strength is: “I forget unpleasant stuff after sleeping.”

☆ What he thinks his weakness is: “I forget important stuff after sleeping.”

☆ Favorite/Best subject: English. “I only take the class seriously because the teacher is beautiful.”

☆ Dislike/weak subject: Other than English “Studying is boring.”

☆ What made him cry recently: He got hit in the eye from being slapped. “Cheating’s not good.”

☆ Usual sleeping time: 8 hours.

☆ What he usually ends up buying from convenience store: Breath care. “Who knows if I’ll be kissing my girlfriend later.”

☆ Place he washes first when taking a bath: Between the toes. “Don’t want to get athlete’s foot.”

☆ Fixation: Scent. “I can tell our compatibility when you hug me.”

☆ Number of chocolates received from previous Valentine: 1. “It’s from a senior I was dating at the time. I was really into her.”

☆ At what age he experiences first love: At age 3. “With Dokin-chan.”

☆ The first time he got confessed to: Happened when he was 5 years old. “I kissed about 95% of the girls in nursery school, and 50% of them confessed.”

☆ What will he do if received 100 million yen: "Charter a night pool party for as long as I can."

☆ At what age he stops receiving presents from Santa: At age 12.

☆ What was his last wish from Santa: New spikes. “With some exciting design.”

☆ How he spent his holiday: "Either hanging out with friends or going on a date. I love the fluttering feelings prior to dating. The feeling wears off once I date the girl, though."

☆ What will he do during his last day on Earth: Enjoy the moment.

** I translated his motto before (link to the post). It was difficult for me to translate it but a user who replied on that post worded it better than mine so I use them here :) thanks @thats-miss-spider-to-you !

note: i want to apologize in advance for any mistake made in the translation!

#blue lock #otoya eita #trivia: otoya eita #trivia: profile #bluelocksource #trivia #our translation

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hamliet · 1 year

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Rereading A Storm of Swords

In light of my recent Fire & Blood reread, I decided to reread the whole ASOIAF series because, well, why not. Below are some general observations/musings on the themes, character arcs, alchemy, and foreshadowing. I’ll do this for the others as well. It’s not really a meta proper, so much as observations and thoughts.

Thoughts on A Game of Thrones here and A Clash of Kings here.

Themes

Duty vs Love

Again, Martin contrasts duty and love. Robb forgives Catelyn for freeing Jaime because "what you did, I know you did for love... Love's not always wise."

Meanwhile, Tywin treats his children as pawns, literally trying to marry them again and telling them they'll do what he tells them because of duty:

"Go," their father said. "We shall talk again after you have composed yourself. Remember your duty."

And Brienne defends Robert by telling Jaime that his rebellion is justified because of love:

"Why is it that no one names Robert oathbreaker? He tore the realm apart, yet I am the one with shit for honor." "Robert did all he did for love."

I don't really have a ton new to say that I didn't already say in my ACOK's post, but again, Martin doesn't seem to see duty/honor and love as actual opposites, but instead suggests there's a balance to be struck. The idea that duty at its most extreme transforms people into things, however, is something I'll talk about more later.

Individuality vs Ideas

Part of the reason ASOAIF is so complex is that it's deconstructing the idea that enemies and villains and "red shirts" are just empty ideas rather than living, breathing people. We have this idea throughout all books, but it's emphasized starting in ASOS:

"Enough." The Hound's face was tight with anger. "You're making noise. These names mean nothing. Who were they?" "People," said Lord Beric. "People great and small, young and old. Good people and bad people, who died on the points of Lannister spears or saw their bellies opened by Lannister swords.

Then we have Jon starting to empathize with the wildlings:

He did not want their friendship, any more than he wanted Ygritte's love. And yet . . . the Thenns spoke the Old Tongue and seldom talked to Jon at all, but it was different with Jarl's raiders, the men who'd climbed the Wall. Jon was coming to know them despite himself: gaunt, quiet Errok and gregarious Grigg the Goat, the boys Quort and Bodger, Hempen Dan the ropemaker. The worst of the lot was Del, a horsefaced youth near Jon's own age, who would talk dreamily of this wildling girl he meant to steal. "She's lucky, like your Ygritte. She's kissed by fire."

Martin also uses this "red shirts" idea to open and close the book in the prologue and epilogue. Chett and Merritt aren't particularly sympathetic characters on the outset, but from being in their mind, even if we see Chett as an incel-esque character and Merritt as a coward, we feel their fear and hopes and self-loathing too. It's impossible not to see them as human, and when they realize they're going to die... well. It leaves us with a strange feeling.

We Are All Just Songs

"We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky." Oh look, we've got a title drop here! A title drop!

ASOIAF is playing with the ideas of stories. For example, characters like Sansa adore simplistic stories of courtly romances. Arya enjoys badass historical stories. Bran enjoys ghost stories. Daenerys enjoys stories about her family's history.

Well, any wonder each of their stories are deconstructing these ideas?

But Martin isn't saying stories are stupid or bad. If anything, he's saying we need stories. Stories are the ideals that help light our way through messy reality.

True Kings, True Knights

Throughout the first few books, we have Sansa telling us "he was no true knight" about the vile people serving Joffrey. The point isn't to mock Sansa, but instead to deconstruct her ideals. Through Sansa's pure-hearted belief and compassion, even for people like the Hound, they start to change and become more and more knightly.

Please note I'm not saying this is okay or whatever, just saying there is some romantic coding between them even when they're apart in the books. Should Sandor return and meet Sansa again, I would expect it to be a textbook chivalric romance:

a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.

The "no true knight" mantra is also picked up this book by Brienne, who inspires similar change in Jaime. It's also repeated by Daenerys, with a twist:

"Some kings make themselves. Robert did." "He was no true king," Dany said scornfully. "He did no justice. Justice . . . that's what kings are for."

Again, I highly doubt we're going for a scorched earth burned ashes deconstruction here, but instead digging to the heart of what this means. What does it mean to be a just ruler for Daenerys? As much as she needs to mature and accept worser parts of herself, much like Sansa and Brienne, her general ideals are not themselves wrong, even if their application in the real world is messier than in songs.

Protecting the Innocent:

We have this theme throughout the story: those who protect the innocent are heroes. We even have this in the lore of the story itself, such as the Knight of the Laughing Tree (who is clearly Lyanna, and the incident clearly jumpstarted her relationship with Rhaegar).

Also, can't believe I have to say this, but in ASOIAF, hurting kids iz bad. It's particularly Bad. It's Bad Bad. (Nota Bene: I do not get how the House of the Dragon fans and even its actors do not get this very basic principle in ASOIAF). In earlier books, we had Ned full of regret for the deaths of Rhaegar's children and fear that Robert would hurt Cersei's. Now in ASOS, Martin hits us with this idea in almost every storyline.

Robb loses a lot of his army to punish someone who murdered two children in revenge for his own children. Oh look, it's almost like ASOIAF doesn't condone "an eye for an eye, a son for a son":

"They died," said Rickard Karstark, yielding no inch of ground. "The Kingslayer cut them down. These two were of his ilk. Only blood can pay for blood." "The blood of children?" Robb pointed at the corpses. "How old were they? Twelve, thirteen? Squires."

Then we have Daenerys and the Unsullied and the children crucified on the way to Meereen. The truly evil idea is seeing kids as a weakness, an idea that makes Dany "feel faint":

"To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother's eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them."

Plus, it's stated directly:

Yet he saw himself as a hero, and heroes do not kill children."

Then we have Melisandre arguing that hurting children even for the best of intentions is the right thing to do, but the framing of this--through Davos' eyes--tells us this is completely wrong. Even if you lose your army and your life like Robb. Even if you lose everything. It's. Not. Worth. It.

The Lord of Light cherishes the innocent. There is no sacrifice more precious. From his king's blood and his untainted fire, a dragon shall be born.

(Clearly, this also foreshadows the demise of Shireen.)

Again, Davos, one of the most moral characters in this story, tells us directly what we should think:

"...what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" "Everything," said Davos, softly.

This storyline also seems to be combined with Nissa Nissa, even though Nissa Nissa is an adult and not a child, because Azor Ahai has to sacrifice what he loves most. Stannis will sacrifice Shireen, his child, because she's what he loves most, but it won't work. I'd suggest that the idea is less "Stannis just wasn't chosen" and more "don't kill the innocent."

If there is a sacrifice to defeat the Others, I 100% do not see a Nissa Nissa situation happening, but instead a willing self-sacrifice.

Look Back! Look Back!

All of the characters have to look back if they are to go forward, as Daenerys is reminded by Quaithe. The problem is no one's doing that in their quest to look ahead.

Tyrion: "Some part of him had hoped for less indifference. Had hoped, he jeered bitterly, but now you know better, dwarf. Shae is all the love you're ever like to have". He has to face what happened with Tysha, to face the fact that he participated in that and became her monster, to ever be a better man.

Arya needs to face herself as a Stark and as someone who wants a family even more than she thinks she wants to be powerful: "Jaqen was gone, though. He'd left her. Hot Pie left me too, and now Gendry is leaving. Lommy had died, Yoren had died, Syrio Forel had died, even her father had died, and Jaqen had given her a stupid iron penny and vanished."

And Daenerys has to face her father's legacy, and likely will when she accidentally sets off Dear Old Dad's wildfyre in King's Landing: "If she was not her father's daughter, who was she?" This is the central question of Daenerys' arc. Her identity is in her status as the last living Targaryen. The question is whether she wants to continue the Targaryen legacy of madness and slavery, or destroy it (which she's doing).

Foreshadowing

Arya

When thinking of the original outline Martin somewhat scrapped and that Arya/Jon idea, I do wonder if this is a leftover idea meant to tell us something about Arya's future (namely, that Gendry is likely her love interest instead of Jon):

Arya gave Gendry a sideways look. He said it with me, like Jon used to do, back in Winterfell. She missed Jon Snow the most of all her brothers.

Tyrion

Well, Tywin says this at the start to Tyrion:

You are done with whores. The next one I find in your bed, I'll hang.

The irony is Tywin won't find a whore in Tyrion's bed. Instead, Tyrion will find that precise whore, Shae, in his father's bed. And he "hangs" her by strangling her with that necklace.

Jon

Jon "had slain the wildling Orell, but some part of the man remained within the eagle." This is pretty likely foreshadowing for Jon remaining in Ghost for a bit before he's resurrected.

Jon and Daenerys

The story has a middle section somewhat littered with romantic longings and first loves. Daenerys is torn about Jorah, whom she doesn't love like that, and has a crush on Daario. She also sleeps with Irri. Arya and Gendry begin to show attraction. Jaime and Brienne. Jon and Ygritte. But here are some lines between Jon and Ygritte that hint at his romantic future:

She punched him. "That's vile. Would you bed your sister?" "Longspear's not your brother." "He's of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow..."

"Then I'd push him in a stream or throw a bucket o' water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn't smell sweet like flowers." "What's wrong with flowers?"

Lol well at least she's his aunt?

Jon's already been strongly associated with blue roses, so this hints that Ygritte isn't a perfect match for him. She's kissed by fire, but not actually fire and air herself, like Dany is. Daenerys also liked the fact that the blue rose growing in a chink of ice at the wall "smell[ed] sweetly."

Lastly:

A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall.

Again, I feel like this might be foreshadowing for Dany and Jon having a child someday. The one thing that makes me skeptical and wondering if the child may be more metaphorical is the timeline--whether or not there's enough time for them to bear a child and save the world from the Others. That said, there's plenty of foreshadowing for it, so...

Sansa

The White Ghost clearly predicts Sansa's hairnet's role in Joffrey's assassination, as well as offers a prophecy of Sansa slaying a giant at, a giant who tries to destroy Winterfell. This may indicate Sansa literally kills a giant at some point, or it might be metaphorical. The one who needs to be slain by Sansa is Littlefinger, but he hasn't really been associated with giant imagery yet just kidding @isammy7936 pointed out the obvious: that the Baelish family crest is the Titan of Braavos.

There's a followup scene of Sansa tearing Robert Arryn's doll that destroyed Winterfell later in the book, in the presence of Littlefinger who was helping her build it. I don't doubt that Littlefinger will help Sansa claim the North at some point, but I also see him trying to destroy the Starks.

Jaime

Oh, Jaime.

I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told himself. We will die together as we were born together.

When I reach King's Landing I'll have a new hand forged, a golden hand, and one day I'll use it to rip out Vargo Hoat's throat.

Smells like foreshadowing to me, although I don't think it will be Vargo Hoat's throat he rips out, but Cersei's he strangles.

Alchemy

Daenerys and Red

Continuing with Dany's theme of becoming red, sulfur, fire and air, the first city she takes is Astapor, a red city:

In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze... Even through the thickness of her sandals, she could feel the warmth of the red bricks underfoot.

The other red association I've seen is her dream that she is Rhaegar fighting the Others at the Trident. Most seem to think the battle against the others will end at Winterfell, which I tend to agree with. However, the fact that the final climax should involve red at some point makes me wonder, because this takes place specifically at the Red Fork of the Trident.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

Then again, fire is certain to be involved in defeating the Others, so it might well be red enough with that.

Bran and White

To continue the Starks are water and earth and white idea, Bran has this quote:

Moonlight painted the wet woods in shades of silver and turned the grey peaks white. Owls hooted through the dark and flew silently between the pines, while pale goats moved along the mountainsides.

Sansa and White

When I reread AGOT, I did take note that Sansa was given a red rose by Ser Loras, rather than the white he gave other girls. But in ASOS, Sansa talks to Loras about that very moment, and the point of this conversation is to reveal how little it meant to Loras. He gave her a red rose because he grabbed a red rose first, not because it meant anything. Seems like a meta commentary.

Arya and White/Water

When Arya dresses like a girl for the first time again, she wears something "lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls."

Furthermore, Arya routinely stops to give water to the dying, even the executed. Even when people, like the Hound, ask for wine (red), she gives them water.

Brienne and Jaime

For Jaime and Brienne, there's very little I can say about their alchemical weddings that the fabulous @argentvive hasn't covered. The first is the dual in the creek, which is with swords and violent, while the second is in the bath. The first one is also littered with romantic and sexual imagery, and is frankly what I'd call metaphorical sex:

No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime's blood was singing. This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke... He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh. "Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music's still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?" ... She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting.

Brienne is also marked as water/earth, and white, while Jaime is red and fire. Jaime tells Brienne:

Think of Tarth, mountains and seas, pools, waterfalls, whatever you have on your Sapphire Isle, think . . .

Jaime slid into the offered seat quickly, so Bolton could not see how weak he was. "White is for Starks. I'll drink red like a good Lannister." " "I would prefer water," said Brienne. "Elmar, the red for Ser Jaime, water for the Lady Brienne..."

But after their second chemical wedding in the baths, they take on each other's qualities much more. Jaime dons his white cloak, lives in the white tower, and gives Brienne his Valyrian steel sword, which is colored with Lannister red (and is also a phallic symbol).

Arya and Gendry

Arya and Gendry's scenes become slightly romantically charged in this book. After she dresses like a girl, this conversation takes place.

Gendry put the hammer down and looked at her. "You look different now. Like a proper little girl." "I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns." "Nice, though. A nice oak tree." He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. "You even smell nice for a change."

They then fight in a scene that parallels the Brienne and Jaime wrestling scene above.

Reconciling Opposites:

Another idea in this book spoken of by multiple characters is that of reconciling opposites. That's what alchemy is fundamentally concerned with. Meera states that hate and love are essentially two sides of the same coin. Barristan says greatness and madness are the same. Melisande says:

"The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good." She took a step toward him. "Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. Everywhere, the war."

Again, George has pretty much confirmed Dany and Jon are the Song of Ice and Fire, so they need to unite.

Tyrion

One thing I wonder about is the use of homonculus (sometimes represented as a dwarf) and a rebis in alchemy, and whether or not Tyrion is intended to be a portrayal of either or both or neither. Homonculi are sometimes called "monsters", a name Tyrion bitterly embraces by the end of the book. Oberyn says that after Tyrion's birth, there were rumors he had the genitalia of male and female, but Tyrion didn't. At the same time, he does have odd features like two different colored eyes, etc that might hint at him being seen as an alchemical rebis. I don't know.

Other Thoughts

Tyrion as a Targaryen

Not only do I think it doesn't thematically work to have Tyrion as a Targaryen, but I think the line used at the end of this book as evidence ("You . . . you are no . . . no son of mine") strongly indicates the opposite--that Tyrion is indeed his father's son. You see, Tywin literally says the exact same sentiment only a few chapters earlier to Jaime:

The strained silence went on until it was more than Jaime could endure. "Father . . . " he began.

"You are not my son." Lord Tywin turned his face away. "You say you are the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and only that. Very well, ser. Go do your duty."

If people want to argue the Tyrion Targaryen angle, this is not really evidence itself.

Tyrion the Monster

Tyrion's the first of the Main Six to dive off the cliff, starting at the end of this book where he lies to Jaime to tell him he killed Joffrey, desperate to hurt Jaime the same way he's hurting. He's enraged he literally saved the city and no one cares; they all just want him dead for his disability, for things he cannot help. He can't even find love because of it, and he craves love. So he finally decides to be the monster they think he is.

Insofar as the other two likely heads of the dragon go... I think they'll take similar approaches to their dark spirals. We see hints of it this book. Daenerys won't look back until confronted with it, so she'll probably be like "let me prove myself with fire and blood" (actually, this is exactly what her ADWD arc leads to her deciding to do). Jon notes the fact that people assume bastards are craven and scheming, and I do not doubt that is exactly what Jon will become after he's resurrected: he's probably going to ditch the Wall, the fight, and everything for a time.

Jeyne Westerling

Poor Jeyne. Despite her mother's machinations to get Jeyne to seduce Robb, I do believe she and Robb genuinely loved each other--as much as anyone could. Their story seems to be a deconstruction of the "love at first sight" trope, wherein they love each other but don't entirely know each other, and have to get used to each other as people rather than as just objects of love. Hence, Jeyne turning to Catelyn for advice. Which frankly was a wise thing to do :'')

The True Fight

Davos reminds Stannis what the true fight is: up north, fighting the Others. I'm sorry but I can't see the books ending with the show's ending, where the true fight is against humans. No, this isn't thematically contradictory with the idea that the story is about humanity or the human heart against itself; the opposite in fact.

The true fight all humans face is against death, and what we do to live in the face of the reality that we're all going to die.

#daenerys targaryen #jonerys #jon snow #alchemy #a storm of swords #asos meta #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #davos seaworth #stannis baratheon #jeyne westerling #jaime lannister #braime #brienne of tarth #sansa stark #tyrion lannister #arya stark #gendry waters #sandor clegane

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dopepoisonivyoncrack · 1 month

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ahaha you fell for my trap and reblogged the art ask game!! lets go!! 5, 8, 13 <3

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

I post all finished things these days and sometimes wips and there is nothing much going on because I don't have the time&energy for it. But if we are to include old art, and unfinished stuff then I guess half of it its stored.

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

An 80 x 60 cm oil painting on canvas of a girl with the dress on fire like its a burning paper from 9-10 years ago. I don't even have the oil colors anymore, the canvas got cut in a corner too. It's not something I can finish, and restarting it feels like too much trouble so its just...there.

Also got like 35434667 ideas for fanart that I saved references for but don't feel like doing them anymore.

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

Oh, this is a tough one. I admire many artists who work in other mediums for e.g. writers, cross stitch artists, pixel artists, aso. Then there are artists I end up borrowing from their style or techniques but I wouldn't draw in that style or those themes. Idk who to pick, honestly.

#ivy answers #ask game #thanks for allowing me to use my aesth banner #I so rarely get any asks I forget I have them #tangomagnolija

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beevean · 9 months

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"So Maria Renard is a young and feisty vampire hunter who can communicate with animals and have them help her fight evil! She's really esager to prove her worth! In SOTN she's a young adult who's matured a lot yet she still remains cheerful and optimistic, unwilling to give up on Richter's soul!"

NFCV: ...so she's a strong leader for the French Revolution, got it. It's girl boss time!

Oh you want me to talk about the new preview of Nocturne?

Because boy do I have. Words about it! :D

First of all, the obvious: where is RoB's story? Where is Dracula kidnapping young maidens? What is Erzsebet Báthory doing here, she's the one who in the games causes WWI! Are they going to explain how Dracula has a niece, or is it just a name for the sake of a name?

But yeah, this has nothing to do with either RoB or SoTN. This is just... political commentary for the sake of political commentary. Because we all loved the insistent "CHURCH BAD" from NFCV, right? Seems like kicking out Ellis changed jack shit :D

"the atmospheric backdrop of the French Revolution" ah yes, bloodshed and guillotines, so mystique~

"Richter, the tough young hero who’s continuing the family tradition of vampire hunting" what tradition? Trevor barely killed a vampire in the original show :'D

"Maria, a natural leader who’s fighting inequality in her country, and also a magic user battling the vampire elite" bro. bro she's 12. Why do I fear that she's going to become an expy of Diane from Bojack.

"Annette, who used her power and wits to escape vampire-enforced enslavement in the Caribbean, and now wields magic to stop the impending apocalyptic threat" ohhhhh boy. So first of all, yes, this confirms that the black girl seen in the leaks is indeed Annette. Seems we have another Isaac case on our hands! Now they're free to write her as shittily as they want her to, and fans will immediately jump to accuse you of being anti-blackwashing :'D

Aso, what's with black characters and being former slaves? (or non-white characters in general, if we count the Japanese not-twins) You really can't think of anything else for a black character? They have to be slaves. Okay.

But that's not the issue. The issue is that they gave her magic powers too. Why? Maria already fills that role. Is she going to be Sypha 2.0? Are we already girlbossifying all the women? Why can't she be a normal yet brave woman?

Edouard and Tera prove that we're going to get plenty of OCs from the start.

"Olrox, who killed Richter’s mother years ago and now must decide whether he can stomach teaming up with his sworn enemy in order to stop vampiric world domination" what the fuck. what is this.

"Erzsebet Báthory, aka the one foretold. She’s the queen of vampires, and, if all goes as planned, of the entire world." carmilla. she's carmilla. i swear if a single radfem speech comes out of her mouth...

"In the thick of the French Revolution, members of the so-called lower classes are rising up to fight inequality: “It’s the natural order for them to milk us dry with impossible rents and unpayable taxes,” Maria (Davies), a young leader, laments." yep! So faithful to the spirit of Castlevania! I love that part in RoB where you have to fight Louis XVI <3

"Richter joins forces with Maria and an unlikely crew of characters whose toughened exteriors bely their various tragic backstories." hopefully they'll be treated with more respect than Trevor's :)

"Their last-ditch battle to save humanity becomes fraught with existential questions as each vampire hunter is forced to confront their own troubled (and deeply human) traumatic past." not to be all "play the games", but Richter feeling crushed by his family legacy is way more gripping than a generic "mom died :(". We gonna mention that, Nocturne? Surely, Richter's appeal as a character is why you immediately jumped to RoB/SoTN, right?

"Is Castlevania: Nocturne based on a video game?

Yes, and then some"

YOU FUCKING LIAR.

anyway this already sounds absolutely awful, it has nothing to do with the games, it's going to be so pretentious, maria you deserved better my girl.

Oh, as a bonus...

"As the peasant class rises up against the aristocracy, an even darker threat emerges: a cabal of powerful vampires intent on taking over the world and blotting out the sun forever."

"vampire-enforced enslavement"

So, a vampire cabal is behind a slave trade...

This is what happens when NFCV is falsely accused of being woke without anyone pointing out how deeply offensive it actually is.

#anti netflixvania

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atopvisenyashill · 14 days

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i love to bitch about the second big time jump being the move that really screwed with the ending of hotd s1 but what’s funny is that got almost had the opposite problem wherein they stretched asos out for too long, which snowballed into massively condensing feastdance and the beginning of twow, and then just fully giving up on ever explaining the notes they got for the end of twow and for ados aksjdj.

i think they really wanted all those big shocking twists to keep going and since asos is FULL of them in a way the rest of the books aren’t as much (bc it’s the culmination of a lot of storylines, bc george thought he was gonna be wrapping things up sooner) they decided to really stretch it out too far bc they wanted the red wedding and purple weddings to be at the ending of their own season and it completely destroys the timeline. but REALISTICALLY, asos should have ended like halfway into s4, with the purple wedding & tyrion’s trial being the midway point, so they had more time to cover feastdance which is just dense as FUCK.

like, there are several more big missteps, the main being their insane and stupid dedication to not having prophecies & to staying low magic until the very end, and also the way they just. clearly didn’t care to interact with like grotesque aspects of this world like george does (vs the SHOCKING aspects, which they very much enjoy but are very different!) but the slowdown of asos was just clearly wanting to capitalize on all the shocking twists instead of born out of a genuine worry that they wouldn’t be able to explain the story in 10 episodes.

#it should have been animated purely so we could have gotten 24 episode seasons with all the magic required to tell the story #getting on my soap box #they both suffer from the same thing at the ending tho which is just skipping around too often in the timeline.#with jumps that don’t make sense

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aegor-bamfsteel · 2 years

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Do you think BR tried to warg Aegor? That's dark asf!

Dark, you say?

…Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong." —ADWD Bran III

BR is definitely “dark” enough to try to warg a human. He’s been teaching Bran some warging, and unlike Haggon, hasn’t passed on that warging a human is an abomination. He has a history of violating the physical autonomy of other people, of treating others’ boundaries as a barrier to be broken while his remain untouched. Admittedly, the idea that he tried warging Aegor isn’t a “hard headcanon” for me (just an idea I was expanding on in fanficland), but it would explain why “the brother I hated” haunts him to the point of trying to speak to him through the trees. What exactly did BR do involving Aegor that made him try to change the past via talking to him?

Then there’s this strange phrase he says: “A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth…but a horse that has known one rider will accept another.” (ADWD Bran III) Varamyr used the same comparison with Jon in ASOS. But BR wargs birds and possibly dogs, and Varamyr birds/wolves/cats/bears, no horses. Where does this phrase come from. Consider that Aegor Rivers’ sigil is a stallion and has wings (“Choose one [bird], and fly”). Could he be the wild stallion that fought BR’s warging attempt and won? There’s also some animosity among skinchangers, even if the skinchanger is unaware of their ability: “One skinchanger can always sense another…The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.” (ADWD Prologue) Every interaction Jon has with another skinchanger (Borroq, Varamyr, Orell) is hostile, Varamyr kills Haggon, and BR and Bran are likely set up for conflict. BR allegedly got his skinchanging abilities from his Blackwood mother, but the Brackens are of the First Men as well and are explicit close kin to them. The sigils of skinchanging families are often of the animal they usually warg into (the Stark direwolf, the Crane crane, the Blackwood raven, the Mormont bear). It isn’t out of the area of possibility that the Brackens could warg into their horses, and Aegor got this trait as well (though like Jon, didn’t cultivate it and preferred a life of practicality over magic. Then of course his horses kept dying in battle so he lost the emotional connection it took to warg into the newer ones). If you consider the Brackens wargs, this puts their feud with the Blackwoods—and BR’s hatred of Aegor Rivers—in a new light that connects with one of the major sources of magic in the books. It may also have attracted BR’s attention to him in the first place and how—if BR tried warging him—Aegor was able to shove him out of his consciousness without any injury unlike Thistle. In this scenario, BR isn’t feeling guilty he tried violating someone’s mental autonomy (cuz lol he never cared for that after), but probably more the consequences that ensued (probably Aegor telling Daemon and that being the final straw that broke the Daemon/Brynden friendship). As for what BR wanted to do with warging Aegor, that gets into even darker territory I’m not going to talk about here.

But again, I’m not convinced of the theory (and as far as I know, I’m the one who created it). I just think it adds some backstory to the Bracken/Blackwood, BR/Aegor saga without resorting to a nonsensical trite love triangle, it explains what haunts BR about this hated brother, it explains the horse metaphor in relation to warging, it’s another unconscious vs conscious warg story, and a cautionary tale about warging humans. It could be an interesting direction for the story to go in, but idk if GRRM would go there (though if BR’s end goal is warging Bran like I speculated here, it’s possible). Just some more speculation while we wait for TWOW.

#ask #asoiaf #asoiaf speculation #anti bloodraven #aegor rivers #wargs

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monriatitans · 1 month

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Ta-Da! List: Friday, March 22nd

I share my “Ta-Da! List” every day so everyone gets a daily update and I have a reminder of what I’ve accomplished.

To learn more about “Ta-Da! Lists”, check out @adhdjesse‘s book Extra Focus.

Abbreviations

– MT: MonriaTitans – WGS: The Weekend Game Show – COTMQ: Cause of the Month Quote – AUAM: Autism Acceptance Month – ASO: Artist Shout-Out – O&T: Opinions & Truth Blog – ABC: Artbook Collection – BMAC: Buy Me a Coffee – TDL: Ta-Da! List

Ta-Da! List

✧ throughout the day: – kept emails manageable – loaded the dishwasher ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the bedroom setup: – ABC: shared “Windows to Worlds: The Art of Devin Elle Kurtz” to O&T and other social media – O&T: embedded Yes I’m a Designer‘s YouTube video “AI vs Artists – The Biggest Art Heist in History” to “The Dangers of AI ‘Art’” pinned post; shared today’s TDL – MT Carrd: added a link to BMAC‘s “Art Collection (ABC)” post to the MT section; added an ABC Gallery – WGS: finished preparing Apr.’s COTMQs for AUAM; began scheduling posts on social media ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the office setup: – Personal: working on the office setup worsens the neck, shoulder, and lower back pain; did only the necessities – WGS: prepared the ASO for tomorrow, Mar. 23rd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ chores and miscellaneous: – turned in the passport application and got a photo taken along with it – “watched” “WALL-E” repeatedly – submitted a passport application – checked the mail – finished “watching” Jessie Gender‘s video “The Anti-Trans Propaganda Film Made by a Cult” via YouTube – “watched” Upper Echelon‘s videos “Kotaku Just Died. Sort of.” and “Total Dominance of INDIE GAMES – ( ft. Helldivers 2 and Palworld)” via YouTube – “watched” I’m Autistic, Now What?‘s video “The Neurotypicals are SO NOT OKAY” via YouTube – “watched” Robert Reich‘s video “How Trump is Following Hitler’s Playbook” via YouTube – “watched” Cinema Therapy‘s video “Does Uncle Iroh ACTUALLY Give Good Advice? Therapist vs. Uncle Iroh” via YouTube – “watched” Ponderful‘s video “Misinfo, Diagnosis & Autism Advocacy ft. @YoSamdySam” via YouTube – “watched” Jed Herne‘s video “10 Things Fantasy Readers Hate (Writing Advice)” and “9 Plot Mistakes Every New Fantasy Writer Makes” via YouTube – had pizza for dinner

—

Well, these are all the updates I had for today! Thank you for reading!

May every decision you make be *in the spirit of fairness* and may the rest of your day *NOT go to $#!7*!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoy what I do? Please consider supporting via Buy Me a Coffee (BMAC)! Like what you see and want to know when there’s more? Click here to subscribe for updates and/or hit the Follow button! Watch MonriaTitans on Twitch and YouTube! For more about MonriaTitans, click here! The image was made in Canva!

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nhlovesadri3 · 1 year

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Adriana Lima is back with Victoria’s Secret. YAAAAY!

I have contrasting feelings about her return, to be honest.

I'm happy for her because I know VS means a lot, more then any other brand, to her both professionally and personally. So I'm glad she is happy about getting back with them.

I'm aso happy because, while I'm sure it's far from the old contracts she got with them, I think it will be a lucrative contract.

Also, selfishly I know, I'm happy for the almost sure possibility of seeing her do lingerie again.

What I'm not very positive about is the attitude the brand showed in the past dismissing their Angels publicly stating they were bad role models and examples for women. And the way the brand has "evolved" (more likely devolved tbh) is all other then promising so far.

It's almost certain she will be part fot he new format of the show they will launch this year again too, and while I couldn't ask for nothing better then for her to walk again in the show she liked the most as she always said, I'm not so sure the changes they will surely do will be in the right direction.

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cdigitalss · 2 years

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ASO vs UA : where should you start

When getting started on a mobile marketing strategy, there are several steps to take. Two of those, the biggest ones are App Store Optimization (ASO) and User Acquisition (UA). They are two sides of the same coin, essential tools to help your app or game grow. But where should you start? Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered! What are they? Let’s start at the very beginning, what exactly are App…

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years

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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.10: Mhysa (& 5 things to understand why Dany's character and storyline matter)

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Because I'm about to review one of the most controversial scenes in show!Dany's journey, I think it's important to take a holistic look into her character and storyline first. So, before I start talking about what happens in the episode itself, I am going to address five key things that need to be understood in order to fully appreciate Dany's character and storyline in the books:

Dany's abolitionist crusade's humanitarian importance.

Dany's character motivations.

Dany's background and identity.

Dany's storyline's historical inspirations.

A holistic view of ASOIAF in order to avoid double standards against Dany.

Ultimately, the show writers didn't understand any of these points, which informs their mistakes in their adaptation of Dany's storyline in this episode and beyond.

1) Dany's abolitionist crusade's humanitarian importance

Time and again in the books (particularly in ASOS and ADWD), GRRM reinforces that slavery is wrong by displaying what became normalized during the thousands of years it persisted. Examples include:

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to say that the Unsullied aren't men and to take measures to dehumanize them.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to force five-year-old children to train every day from dawn to dusk, to the point of only one in three surviving such harsh conditions.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to force the Unsullied to stand for a day with no food or water to prove their discipline and strength.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to change the Unsullied's names every day so that they lose their sense of individuality.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to force the Unsullied to go to the slave marts to kill a baby before its mother's eyes to prove that they are not weak.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to make the Unsullied drink the wine of courage to feel less pain and endure any torture, such as having their nipples cut off.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to give the Unsullied puppies only to kill them a year later (and, if they don't, they are fed to the surviving dogs).

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to casually whip people when they mildly annoy them.

Astapori slavers thinking that it's okay to send a girl of nine to kill bulls and to send three small boys (one rolled in honey, the other in blood and the other in rotting fish) to confront a bear in the fighting pits.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to leave the Astapori starving, which led them to eat cats, rats and leather.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to hunt down the Astapori and burn the entire city.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to open a slave market.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to whip people until there is only "blood and raw meat" in their backs.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to command two dwarves to breed.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to force a teenage girl to be naked publicly so that they can sell her at a better price.

Yunkish slavers thinking that it's okay to actively spread the bloody flux through Meereen by throwing infected corpses.

Meereenese slavers thinking that it's okay to burn the fields and crucify one hundred and sixty-three children to intimidate Dany.

Meereenese slavers thinking that it's okay to target and murder freedmen to intimidate Dany.

Meereenese slavers thinking that it's okay to pay freedmen low wages and then complain a) about how there are too many beggars, thieves and whores in the city or b) about how the rights and customs of the craftsmen's guilds should be respected.

Meereenese slavers thinking that it's okay to reopen the fighting pits and abuse the freedmen for the nobility's entertainment.

Meereenese slavers thinking that it's okay to send two dwarfs to "fight" against a lion.

Meereenese nobles thinking that it's okay to scourge and rip out the tongues of people who disagree with or know something that it's convenient for them.

And this list only covers human rights abuses that take place in Slaver's Bay (which was the center of slave trade until Dany's arrival). Unfortunately, slavery is so widespread that it helped to build almost the entire continent's economy. The Dothraki and the corsairs of the Basilisk Isles enslave and sell people from different lands to Slaver's Bay. In Volantis, it's estimated that four of every five men are slaves. People from multiple places of Essos are sold into slavery, from Slaver's Bay itself to Qarth to the Dothraki Sea to Lhazar to the Free Cities.

In such an oppressive and devastating scenario, Dany's abolitionist campaign is essential to guarantee that people are no longer desensitized to and systematically allowed to dehumanize others. In-universe, that's why the vast majority of the former slaves love her and why later we get an entire storyline showing what the slavers would do if Dany chose not to be as forceful as she was in ASOS. Doylistically speaking, that's why her actions against the slavers are linked to her upcoming part in the War for the Dawn and to her messianic role as Azor Ahai (as this edit and its quotes excellently illustrate): Dany's war is one that should also involve all of humanity.

Are the show writers aware of this?

Nope.

They may have succeeded in depicting the amount of brutality and suffering that comes with the training of the Unsullied, but, in light of the show's ending, I think that was accomplished mostly because they were interested in shock value rather than in making the audience recognize that show!Dany's crusade was altruistic at its core. This was clear in their interviews: instead of focusing on how vital Dany's actions were to promoting human warfare, Benioff focused on her so-called ruthlessness and ambition when he talked about why she sought an army in Astapor and Weiss focused on her capacity for cruelty when he talked about her attack against the Astapori masters. I've already addressed in which ways these statements about Dany are inaccurate (and detrimental to the understanding of her storyline) in my reviews of episodes 3.3 and 3.4, so I won't belabor the point; instead, I'm only bringing them up here to emphasize that D&D were never (fully) aware of the humanitarian importance of Dany's crusade. That's why they didn't add the moment where Dany says she remembers what it was like to be sold and feel afraid. That's why they didn't show the Unsullied choosing not to side with the slavers when Dany gave them another option. That's why they didn't include the Astapori freedmen who chose to follow Dany in their adaptation. That's why they didn't remember that Dany's main problem prior to the battle of Yunkai was to find a way to take the city and spare freedmen's lives at the same time. That's why, on season four, they will only bother to depict political decisions that paint show!Dany in a negative light (and leave out all of her successful ones). That's why, on season five, they will make her storyline's lesson be about the need to conform to the Meereenese (i.e. slavers') traditions rather than about the need to carry on with her revolution like in the books. That's why, by the end of the show, they will say that Dany burning of King's Landing and its citizens was "a natural outcome of that [...] willingness to go forth and conquer all your enemies" and how "her brand of revolution" stems from her "not seeing the cost". That's why they think there isn't any negative implication in arguing that burning slavers is a slippery slope to burning innocent people: they completely missed the point of her storyline and turned it into slavery apologism. Dany conquered these cities because there was no other way to free the slaves (as ADWD reinforces). Dany conquered these cities precisely because she saw the cost, even in the show (but then, they are such bad writers that they often misunderstand the implications of what they depicted).

And what I said above doesn't even take into account that they completely ignored (and I suspect probably never realized in the first place) the connection between her crusade in Slaver's Bay and her messianic destiny. It's no secret that they've always downplayed the magical elements of the books in the show as a whole. When it comes to Dany, that removal was particularly detrimental because the magic was used by GRRM to emphasize that Dany's actions were righteous.

2) Dany's character motivations

Here, I want to explain why Dany a) fought against the Ghiscari slavers and b) will fight for the Iron Throne in Westeros. This will only cover what's necessary to make my point clear; for more on Dany's intentions, see here and here and here and here and here.

a) Why Dany fought against the Ghiscari slavers

I've argued before that Dany is an accident revolutionary for a couple of reasons. She went to Slaver's Bay because she wanted an army (something that her detractors often use to harshly criticize her), yes, but what was primarily driving Dany was not self-interest/ambition (and it wouldn't matter if it were in the grand scheme of things, considering what other Westerosi feudal lords have done in the name of power), but rather her previous experiences with poverty, which understandably enhanced her desire to have agency. Additionally (and perhaps most importantly), she didn't know how the slaves were being mistreated; if she did, she most likely wouldn't have chosen to turn to Astapor in the first place. But that's partly why her storyline resonates with so many readers: as she gathers more information about the world and its problems, her moral and political values change along the way too. In this case, after finally witnessing the Unsullied's training and being confronted with the dilemma of buying them or leaving them, Dany chose another option: freeing the Unsullied and fighting against the masters instead.

Afterwards, Dany stayed in Slaver's Bay solely because she wants to abolish slavery. If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have questioned on what grounds should a monarch rule. If her intentions weren't selfless, she would have taken the Yunkish masters' wealth for herself rather than just demanded that the slaves were compensated for their unpaid labor. If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have been so hard on herself for her mistakes on Astapor. If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have given the nobility and the freedmen equal voice at court (and her desire for equality was pointed out by GRRM himself). If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't be so insistent on reforming Meereen (which is an expensive endeavor). If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have provided medical aid to the Astapori refugees. If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have given food to the poor. If her intentions weren't selfless, she wouldn't have sacrificed her own personal happiness and bodily autonomy. And so on. Again, I'm not trying to be thorough here, I'm just offering key examples that prove that Dany's campaign is driven by genuine compassion.

b) Why Dany will fight for the Iron Throne

I've said before that Dany doesn't want power for its own sake, but rather because it's a mean to the ends that she actually desires: home and duty. These two essential goals aptly inform why she wants to take back the Seven Kingdoms.

Dany's sole aim that can be considered selfish (i.e. that only focuses on her own benefits) is her desire to find a home, be it somewhere to belong to or someone to rely on. Even then, though, that's more than understandable considering a) that she is an exile who never got to stay on one place or trust her caregiver, b) that everyone in the continent where she was born believes in birthright and c) that every feudal lord is willing to wage war to retain their influence and wealth (more on that in item 5).

Dany's duty, on the other hand, refers not only to her (self-imposed) duty to the helpless (already laid out above), but to her ancestors too. So, even if her upcoming war in Westeros won't be primarily motivated to help the underprivileged (though she still has them in mind), it is still largely self-sacrificing as well (and far from being enough to describe her as power hungry like her detractors do).

Are the show writers aware of this?

Nope.

When it comes to her fight against the Ghiscari masters, Weiss did say that Dany "is driven by a kind of a deep empathy, a much deeper empathy than probably anybody else in the show" back in season four. On the other hand, that statement is rendered moot by the fact that D&D dismiss her actions in Slaver's Bay as a "willingness to go forth and conquer all your enemies" and as a "brand of revolution" that stems from her "not seeing the cost" by the end of the show. In other words, they a) made her anti-slavery crusade about her so-called ambition, b) downplayed her selfless goals and its humanitarian importance (failure in item 1) and c) turned her storyline into slavery apologism.

When it comes to her fight for the Iron Throne, there's never any interview where they focus on her desire for home and belonging or on her duty towards her ancestors, which also explains why these motivations were rarely shown onscreen. That they villainize her for pursuing the Seven Kingdoms displays their failure to understand item 5 (below).

3) Dany's background and identity

Dany isn't a typical queen. She is the only one who lived in poverty, began the story as a sex slave and then turned into a revolutionary thanks to her own choices. She is the only female character whose power isn't derived from her male relatives; in fact, she is specifically set apart for overcoming hardships that they didn't. She is the only queen whose political power is intertwined with her magical destiny (which is partly realized thanks to her actions). She is the only she-king/queen regnant/independent female ruler of the story. She is the only female ruler a) who received an arc that we got to see unfold through her perspective and b) who was depicted as politically savvy, despite having been thrown in the hardest political scenario of the series.

In relation to the Dothraki, Dany is not just a white woman among people of color. She was a child bride forcefully married to and raped by a Dothraki khal. She, like Irri and Jhiqui, was part of a family that was displaced, which led to their enslavement. She assimilated to Dothraki culture and was able to discern the good (the bond between bloodriders and a lifestyle that allows for a stronger sense of equality) and the bad (rape and human trafficking being normalized in their culture). She was the first example of female leadership to her bloodriders and khalasar and the one who set a precedent that men and women can be equals. She genuinely cares about her khalasar's well-being. She is poised to unite all the khalasars in the future. It's important to discern her character from GRRM's and D&D's writing (more on that in item 4).

In relation to the Ghiscari slavers (and not to the Westerosi nobles), Dany is viewed as a foreign monarch.

In relation to the freedmen, however, there's more to it. Like them, Dany is a former slave who was forcefully exiled from her homeland and now belongs nowhere. Unlike the slavers (who are united by Ghiscari heritage), the actual oppressed group come from many places and have different ethnicities and traveled extensively. Similarly, Dany was born in Westeros, grew up in the Free Cities, spent a significant time in the Dothraki sea and ruled in Slaver's Bay. Dany may be considered a foreigner by the slavers, but not by the freedmen, because they are all displaced people. Their connection (which the author emphasizes in both AGOT and ASOS) further shows that slavery in ASOIAF is not based on race and ethnicity (more on that in item 4).

The reasons above also explain why it is meaningful that Dany is AA/TPTWP/TSWMTW: many men (Aerys, Rhaegar, Aegon, Viserys, Drogo, Rhaego) had to die so she could become who she was meant to be, which further emphasizes that, as much as certain people want to pretend otherwise, Dany being the chosen one is not what the readership tends to expect.

I would argue that it's very important to have a basic understanding of various forms of oppression and acknowledge the multiple social groups that Dany belongs to in order to recognize her character's and storyline's significance. By being aware of them, one can understand, for example,

a) why Dany is not "too obvious" a glorified savior for her story not to have a twist by the end (That tends to happen because these detractors only see her as a white noblewoman, but, considering her identity as a whole, she is exactly someone who the readership wouldn't think of as the hero) or

b) why the story would be offensive on many levels if it ended with Dany going mad and/or becoming a villain (Why would GRRM do that to the one character who was exiled and enslaved and who, thanks to her own intelligence and compassion, got to fight against systemic oppression because she herself knows "how it felt to be afraid"?) or

c) why the theory that Dany burns King's Landing is offensive regardless of whether she does it accidentally or not (Why would GRRM have his sole queen regnant, i.e. the only woman whose power isn't derived from a man and who gets to make decisions concerning warfare like men usually do, be overly defined by violence in a way that his kings don't have to be? Why would he use her anti-slavery crusade as a device to make her care less about collateral damage and then be responsible for atrocities of such magnitude? It may still happen, but it definitely warrants criticism if it does)

Are the show writers aware of this?

Nope.

On the one hand, Weiss did previously acknowledge that Dany's past experiences inform her current attitude ("She's always been very negatively predisposed towards slavery because she knows what it feels like to be property, I mean, she was a very fancy slave for all intents and purposes, she was somebody who was sold to another man, taken against her will and I think that her feelings about slavery have started to really inform her reasons for wanting the Iron Throne").

On the other hand, if they really understood the significance of her background, they wouldn't have made the northmen hate her for being a foreigner and portrayed her being in the wrong. If they really understood the significance of her background, they wouldn't have thought that show!Arya killing the Night King (which wasn't supposed to have happened) or show!Sansa becoming queen (which made no sense since that would motivate other regions to demand independence from the crown as well) would be interchangeable with show!Dany's downfall and prevent them from receiving criticism regarding the misogyny in their writing.

4) Dany's storyline's historical inspirations

In the words of the author himself,

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. (x)

The Dothraki are partially based on the Huns and the Mongols, some extent the steppe tribes like the Alvars and Magyars. I put in a few elements of the Amerindian plains tribes and those peoples, and then I threw in some purely fantasy elements. It’s fantasy.

Are they barbaric? Yeah, but the Mongols were, too. Genghis Khan — I just saw an interesting movie about Ghengis Khan, recently. I’ve read books about Genghis Khan, and he’s one of history’s more fascinating, charismatic characters. The Mongols became very sophisticated at certain points, but they were certainly not sophisticated when they started out, and even at the height of their sophistication they were fond of doing things like giant piles of heads. “Surrender your city to me, or we will come in and kill all the men, rape all the women and make a giant pile of heads.” They did that a few times, and other cities said, “Surrender is good. We’ll surrender. We’ll pay the taxes. No pile of heads, please.” (x)

And meanwhile, you've got Daenerys visiting more Eurasian and Middle Eastern cultures.

And that has generated its controversy too. I answer that one to in my blog. I know some of the people who are coming at this from a political or racial angle just seem to completely disregard the logistics of the thing here. I talk about what's in the books. The books are what I write. What I’m responsible for.

Slavery in the ancient world, and slavery in the medieval world, was not race-based. You could lose a war if you were a Spartan, and if you lost a war you could end up a slave in Athens, or vice versa. You could get in debt, and wind up a slave. And that’s what I tried to depict, in my books, that kind of slavery. (x)

These interviews show that Dany's storyline's historical parallels are mainly ancient civilizations (which explains her parallels with Cleopatra or the Ghiscari pyramids' closeness to Egyptian pyramids or how the duels in the fighting pits resemble the Roman gladiatorial games or the similarities between the Unsullied's training with Sparta's training of young boys or why tokars are togas), which, in turn, prove that GRRM is not attempting to write a critique of white saviorism. Indeed, that he reduces the Dothraki and the Mongols to being "barbaric" and refuses to give any individuality to his Dothraki characters confirm that he's the racist one here. Even the parallels that he draws between Dany's storyline and the American Civil War and Reconstruction are non-racialized in nature.

Also, even if GRRM and D&D weren't racists, the racist imagery in Dany's storyline (especially show!Dany's) doesn't make Dany herself a white savior; as @yendany explained before, white saviorism is about:

a) glorifying whiteness/western culture or an individual white person at the expense of people of color. Neither version of Dany fulfill this requirement because Dany was raised in Essos and doesn't force Ghiscari people into adhering to Westerosi or Valyrian culture and slavery, again, isn't race-based (which is why the Dothraki are portrayed as oppressors). The show ending only reinforces the latter point (more on that later).

and/or

b) a white person providing help to people of color in order to serve their own interests. Neither version of Dany fulfill this requirement because their compassion and humanitarianism are genuine (and necessary), as shown in items 1 and 2 above.

Are the show writers aware of this?

For the most part, nope.

On the one hand, they were involved in the show's production, so they had to be aware of the obvious parallels between Dany's storyline and the Ancient Mediterranean world (though not enough to hire extras of multiple races and ethnicities or to let show!Dany wear togas). Also, Benioff once stated that "there always seemed to be this sense of manifest destiny with Dany", which implies that they were aware of the white savior criticism surrounding her character and storyline (though probably not enough to question its validity based on her characterization).

On the other hand, they never cared about making any improvements from the racism in the books, and the ending is clear proof of that. Before season eight, I'd seen many people argue that the Unsullied and the Dothraki were used as show!Dany's props to emphasize her "goodness". Instead, it's the other way around: they were never meant to be "good" on their own, in fact, they were only portrayed as "good" because of show!Dany; by the end, when show!Dany was villainized, they were as well. Indeed, people of color like show!Missandei and show!Grey Worm suddenly became more aggressive while the white men in show!Dany's team (show!Jon, show!Tyrion and show!Varys) were portrayed as the rational/pacifist ones, reinforcing that there was never any attempt to provide race-related social commentary in the show (or in the books, for that matter). If there had been an attempt (poor and offensive as it would still be), the Unsullied and the Dothraki would have been depicted as the Mad Queen's victims (which only the Westerosi smallfolk and the Lannister armies (i.e. white people) got to be) rather than the Mad Queen's evil army.

5) A holistic view of ASOIAF in order to avoid double standards against Dany

I could mention more double standards than the four below, but my intention here is not to be comprehensive, but rather to provide some of the key examples of double standards used to criticize Dany's eventual campaign in Westeros and to accuse her of white saviorism.

Yes, Dany wants to wage a war to take back her homeland, but so did Robb when Winterfell was taken. (Unfortunately, Stannis may do the dirty work for the Starks in TWOW.)

Yes, Dany wants to take the Seven Kingdoms and the Starks "only" want Winterfell, but what matters is not the size of the area they are claiming, but rather the fact that the system that they are all working under (i.e. pseudofeudal monarchy) rewards birthright, exploits the labor of the peasants, encourages wars for petty reasons and perpetuates social inequality.

Yes, Dany will eventually be willing to use dragonfire to accomplish her goals, but fire was used by several parties against their enemies. The Ghiscari slavers used it. Stannis Baratheon used it. Tyrion Lannister used it. Jon Snow used it. The brotherhood without banners used it. If they had dragons, you can bet that they would have used them (and probably would have been less reluctant about it than Dany).

Yes, Dany's storyline has racist elements, but so does the Starks' origin story and Tyrion's storyline and the Martells' creation. In fact, if we're talking about racism, it can't be overlooked that Dany is the only white main character who interacts with, cares about and fights for people of color, while the other white characters remain isolated in Westeros and ignorant of their struggles. It can't be overlooked that GRRM wishes he had made Dany (and none of the other main characters) a Black woman. That people of color aren't given more prominence in the narrative is GRRM's fault (see item 4), not Dany's.

When all's said and done, Dany is not doing anything that could be considered morally wrong that other people didn't do, but she is taking large-scale actions solely due to her compassion that no one else is. That's because GRRM chose to set her apart from the other claimants by placing her in a storyline where she gets to advocate for the oppressed and have larger concerns than her claim or how her family was wronged. Does that make her look "too good"? Well, you just have to look at Jon to see that that's not true; both are flawed and imperfect, but still compassionate, intelligent and, ultimately, not as morally grey as most of the other characters of the series.

Are the show writers aware of this?

Nope.

I would say that the root of the problem in the show writers' depiction of show!Dany stems from the fact that they don't look at the events from the perspective of the lowborn.

If they would look at her actions in Slaver's Bay from the point of view of a freedman, they would understand why they were righteous (failure to comprehend item 1); instead, they talk about how her cruelty "grows" because she hurt people who hadn't done anything to her personally (which shows how easily they empathize with the slavers) and focus on how she is becoming a threat.

If they would look at her actions in Westeros from the point of view of a peasant, they would understand that a) every single lord exploits their labor, b) that Dany is not doing anything that the the lords wouldn't do (which is why the kingdoms constantly warred with their neighbors before Aegon's Conquest) and c) that the lords never waged war specifically to protect the oppressed like Dany did (see items 1 and 2), which is why Northern independence (or Robert's Rebellion) is not morally superior to Dany's campaign for the Iron Throne.

Because they couldn't understand any of this, they portrayed show!Dany's war effort as worse than the other characters' and ended up villainizing her for her ambition and use of violence when they never did so with the other characters, which creates offensive double standards and highlights the misogyny (i.e. controlling and punishing women who challenge male dominance) in their writing.

Now I'm going to go to the scene itself in order to demonstrate how it particularly exemplifies the show writers' failure to understand these five key things about Dany's character and storyline.

Scene 13

BARRISTAN: They will come, Your Grace. When they’re ready.

DAENERYS: Perhaps they didn’t want to be conquered.

JORAH: You didn’t conquer them. You liberated them.

DAENERYS: People learn to love their chains.

In the books, there's never any suspense about whether the newly freedmen will come out or not:

On the morning of the third day, the city gates swung open and a line of slaves began to emerge. Dany mounted her silver to greet them. As they passed, little Missandei told them that they owed their freedom to Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and Mother of Dragons.

“Mhysa!” a brown-skinned man shouted out at her. He had a child on his shoulder, a little girl, and she screamed the same word in her thin voice. “Mhysa! Mhysa!” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

As we can see in the quote above, not only there's no suspense, Dany is mounted on her silver and doesn't have to make a speech to make sure that the former slaves can trust her and hail her as mhysa. Indeed, that's my biggest issue with the speech: it's built on the show writers' assumption that show!Dany needs to "[wait] to see if she is a conqueror or a liberator" in the eyes of the former slaves.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are people who dismiss Dany as a violent conqueror in the books. The Meereenese slavers (i.e., the ones who think they have the right to sell people and exploit their free labor and who suffered a major blow when Dany challenged their way of life, which doesn't exactly make them a reliable viewpoint in a storyline with something meaningful to say) do so:

“...When my people look at you, they see a conqueror from across the seas, come to murder us and make slaves of our children. A king could change that. A highborn king of pure Ghiscari blood could reconcile the city to your rule. Elsewise, I fear, your reign must end as it began, in blood and fire.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

The Yunkish slavers (i.e., the ones who think they have the right to sell people and exploit their free labor and who suffered a major blow when Dany challenged their way of life, which doesn't exactly make them a reliable viewpoint in a storyline with something meaningful to say) do so:

“If even half the stories coming back from Slaver’s Bay are true, this child is a monster. They say that she is blood-thirsty, that those who speak against her are impaled on spikes to die lingering deaths. They say she is a sorceress who feeds her dragons on the flesh of newborn babes, an oathbreaker who mocks the gods, breaks truces, threatens envoys, and turns on those who have served her loyally. They say her lust cannot be sated, that she mates with men, women, eunuchs, even dogs and children, and woe betide the lover who fails to satisfy her. She gives her body to men to take their souls in thrall.” (ADWD Tyrion VI)

Dany herself (who, we shouldn't forget, has a tendency to be self-deprecating) also does so. It's the reason why she thinks it's her duty to stay and rule Meereen:

“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

However, the Yunkish envoy's vicious reaction (in both canons) to Dany's request that the Yunkish nobles free their slaves shows that Dany couldn't have freed the slaves (and become a liberator) if she hadn't taken the city (and become a conqueror). She is both conqueror and liberator and these titles don't contradict each other, they inform each other (just like mhysa and mother of dragons). That's something that the former slaves are aware of, because the vast majority of them do want freedom and are grateful that Dany intervened - we see it in Astapor, where the Unsullied chose not to obey their former masters while they were attacked because Dany gave them a choice to fight for their freedom, which they took (and the show didn't depict); we see it in Yunkai, where the former slaves embraced and hailed Dany as their mother right after they met her (and she didn't have to make a speech to prove that they should be freed because they themselves wanted to be freed); we see it in Meereen, where "the fighting slaves [...] led the uprising that won the city for her" and "cheering slaves lifted bloodstained hands to her as she went by"; we see it on Tyrion's POV, where many slaves doubt that Dany would make peace with the slavers and want her to smash the Yunkai'i. To portray them as gullible and dependent on show!Dany's speech in order to embrace freedom (when, again, that was never a question for them in the books) means:

Overlooking their motivations in the books.

Giving them less agency in comparison to the books.

Downplaying the level of human destruction that the slavers perpetrated (and which led the slaves to want to rebel), which shows their failure to understand item 1.

Equating show!Dany to the slavers as a foreign monarch in the former slaves' eyes when, in the books, she became a cult figure right from the first moment that they saw her. This also shows their failure to understand item 3; as I said above, she is not just a ruler, she is also a former slave who was banished from her homeland and doesn't belong anywhere. That makes it all the more meaningful that she, thanks to her own actions and principles, ended up becoming a revolutionary. Failing to understand this is why the show writers felt that she had to make a speech so that she could "compensate" for her actions as a conqueror (which were righteous to begin with).

Now, one might argue that I'm being too nitpicky here, but I didn't make it a secret in the introduction to these books vs show reviews that they are being written with the hindsight knowledge that the show writers will attempt to vilify show!Dany. One way that they will do so is to turn the freedmen against her in the later seasons, which is something that never happens in the books (which is why I'm wary of how her speech here already indicates that her connection to the freedmen is being downplayed). As I just said above and will reiterate: the show writers never really grasped the humanitarian importance of her crusade (item 1) or why she's seeking the Iron Throne in the first place (item 2). The show writers never really understood that the former slaves weren't united by culture or race or nationality and that they still had a connection with Dany as exiles sold into slavery (item 3). This is why they thought it was okay to make her the final villain of their series.

JORAH: You didn’t conquer them. You liberated them.

DAENERYS: People learn to love their chains.

First, show!Jorah being the one shown explaining to show!Dany that she is a liberator is really annoying since she is the former sex slave who chose to become an abolitionist and he is a slaver himself who is an apologist even in show canon.

Second, there are different ways to interpret show!Dany's line above. @daenerys-targaryen interpreted it as show!Dany referring to herself and how she fell in love with Drogo while she was his slave. @queenaryastark interpreted it as a way to express Tyrion's thoughts about how it's easy to grow accustomed to being a slave in ADWD. These are all valid readings that can coexist with my own: that the show writers only added this line in order to make show!Dany's storyline "more complex" (in their eyes). We see show!Dany having to "[wait] to see if she is a conqueror or a liberator", after all, which is a question about her "internal struggle" (which, again, makes no sense to overfocus on since Dany wouldn't be a liberator if she weren't also a conqueror) that the show chooses to hammer home in comparison to the books (where it's made clear that most of the former slaves know that they want to be freed). This added question a) undermines how significant it is that Dany is an active hero who chose to fight for the slaves when she didn't have to in a time and place where no one else cared about their plea and there was no conception of universal human rights (failure to understand items 2 and 5), b) downplays the message that the use of violence can be morally righteous (because it creates a false dichotomy between conqueror and liberator, like the fandom does with mhysa and mother of dragons; unfortunately, both showrunners miss the point - Weiss thinks that show!Dany's empathy and cruelty grow in Astapor and Benioff focuses on how she's becoming a threat; failure to understand items 1 and 2) and c) equates show!Dany to the slavers as another foreign monarch in the slaves' perspective (failure to understand item 3), which, in turn, portrays slavery as if it was merely a typical cultural practice rather than a crime against humanity like how it's portrayed in the books (failure to understand item 1). Things are definitely going to get worse in the next seasons (e.g. "mhysa is a master", the addition of a prostitute who hates show!Dany because she's "ruining" Meereenese "traditions", etc), but the cracks were already apparent in season three, which is arguably show!Dany's best season.

MISSANDEI: This is Daenerys Targaryen, the Stormborn, the Unburnt, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, the Mother of Dragons. It is to her you owe your freedom.

DAENERYS: No. You do not owe me your freedom. I cannot give it to you. Your freedom is not mine to give. It belongs to you and you alone. If you want it back, you must take it for yourselves. Each and every one of you.

This scene plays out differently in the books:

“Mhysa!” a brown-skinned man shouted out at her. He had a child on his shoulder, a little girl, and she screamed the same word in her thin voice. “Mhysa! Mhysa!” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

As we can see, a) Dany is not shown correcting Missandei on what freedom entails like it happens in the show and b) Dany never has to give the former slaves a speech in the first place.

I'm of two minds about this speech. On the one hand, show!Dany's speech does highlight her humanitarian intentions in this endeavor: instead of seeing the freedmen as things to be sold like the slavers did, she views them as people who are able to make their own judgments and choices.

On the other hand, a number of issues were caused by the show writers' inability to be faithful to the books. The intentions behind this speech are distasteful since it seems like (the show writers think that) she needs to persuade the former slaves to follow her, which takes away their agency in comparison to the books (where, as I've repeated numerous times by now, they wanted to be freed; failure to understand item 1) and holds show!Dany to a higher standard than the other characters of the series (who, either in Westeros or Slaver's Bay, all believe in and live under an absolute monarchy, with the only difference being that their dominance over the lowborn became normalized over time in a way that show!Dany's didn't, which causes her to be judged by today's moral standards by the show writers; this failure to understand item 5 will only get worse over time, as we all know), which is particularly aggravating because it undercuts the fact that show!Dany is the only one who cares about and fights for the former slaves (failure to understand items 2, 3 and 5).

Another thing that makes me bitter about this speech is that, despite portraying show!Dany positively, it will be used (alongside all of her other speeches), in retrospect, as evidence that she was always set up to burn thousands of innocents in King's Landing:

BENIOFF: What's interesting about it is that she's been making similar kinds of speeches for a long time and we've always been rooting for her and this is kind of a natural outcome of that philosophy and that willingness to go forth and conquer all your enemies and it's just not quite as fun anymore. (x)

Much has been said about how the show fell right into slavery apologism by supposing that burning slavers is a slippery slope to burning noncombatants (failure to understand items 1 and 2) and about how offensive it was that it villainized the one queen who had a particular place in the narrative due to being an exile, a former sex slave, a revolutionary and the only independent female ruler who wasn't depicted as evil (failure to understand item 3). I would also add that the vast majority of the evidence about show!Dany's "villainy" (which betrays a failure to understand item 5) was either exaggerated or invented. For example, aside from the speech that she gave to her khalasar in the first season, all of show!Dany's speeches were added by the show writers, including this one. In fact, it's ironic that, throughout the course of AFFC/ADWD, Dany was the only one of the three main political leaders who was not shown by GRRM giving speeches to the unprivileged:

Jon waited until the last echoes had faded, then spurred his palfrey forward where everyone could see him. “We’re feeding you as best we can, as much as we can spare. Apples, onions, neeps, carrots … there’s a long winter ahead for all of us, and our stores are not inexhaustible.”

“You crows eat good enough.” Halleck shoved forward.

For now. “We hold the Wall. The Wall protects the realm … and you now. You know the foe we face. You know what’s coming down on us. Some of you have faced them before. Wights and white walkers, dead things with blue eyes and black hands. I’ve seen them too, fought them, sent one to hell. They kill, then they send your dead against you. The giants were not able to stand against them, nor you Thenns, the ice-river clans, the Hornfoots, the free folk … and as the days grow shorter and the nights colder, they are growing stronger. You left your homes and came south in your hundreds and your thousands … why, but to escape them? To be safe. Well, it’s the Wall that keeps you safe. It’s us that keeps you safe, the black crows you despise.”

“Safe and starved,” said a squat woman with a windburned face, a spearwife by the look of her.

“You want more food?” asked Jon. “The food’s for fighters. Help us hold the Wall, and you’ll eat as well as any crow.” Or as poorly, when the food runs short. (ADWD Jon V)

“What is the meaning of this?” Cersei demanded of the crowd. “Do you mean to bury Blessed Baelor in a mountain of carrion?”

A one-legged man stepped forward, leaning on a wooden crutch. “Your Grace, these are the bones of holy men and women, murdered for their faith. Septons, septas, brothers brown and dun and green, sisters white and blue and grey. Some were hanged, some disemboweled. Septs have been despoiled, maidens and mothers raped by godless men and demon worshipers. Even silent sisters have been molested. The Mother Above cries out in her anguish. We have brought their bones here from all over the realm, to bear witness to the agony of the Holy Faith.”

Cersei could feel the weight of eyes upon her. “The king shall know of these atrocities,” she answered solemnly. “Tommen will share your outrage. This is the work of Stannis and his red witch, and the savage northmen who worship trees and wolves.” She raised her voice. “Good people, your dead shall be avenged!”

A few cheered, but only a few. “We ask no vengeance for our dead,” said the one-legged man, “only protection for the living. For the septs and holy places.” (AFFC Cersei VI)

In fact, the Dany of the books is never shown giving a speech after AGOT. This is not to say, of course, that making speeches on its own makes show!Dany "darker" (indeed, the show writers were often unaware of what they were writing) than Dany, I'm only pointing out that they never existed in the books.

Mhysa!

DAENERYS: What does it mean?

MISSANDEI: It is old Ghiscari, Khaleesi. It means “mother.”

First, unlike in the show (where the freedmen only shout "mhysa!"), the freedmen of the books call Dany "mother" in lots of different languages:

“Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her. “Maela,” some called her, while others cried “Aelalla” or “Qathei” or “Tato,” but whatever the tongue it all meant the same thing. Mother. They are calling me Mother. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

It's only fitting that the freedmen of the books come from different places and have different races and ethnicities (which the scene above reinforces); not only that connects them to their mhysa (in that they are all people exiled from their homelands and forced into slavery), it is a culmination of Dany's tendency to culturally assimilate, which was already noticeable with the Dothraki. Unfortunately, this doesn't come across in the show because they hired local extras from Morocco (failure to understand/depict items 3 and 4).

Second, as @rainhadaenerys pointed out to me in a conversation, show!Dany makes a speech (which, again, was added by the show writers) in Valyrian in this scene and all the freedmen understand it, which can make sense since most modern Ghiscari continued to speak in the language of their conquerors and the former slaves all probably stayed in Yunkai long enough to learn the language. On the other hand, this will later be contradicted in episode 4.6 when show!Dany will need show!Missandei in order to communicate with a goatherd. In the books, she interacts directly with all of the freedmen, to give some examples:

In the afternoon a sculptor came, proposing to replace the head of the great bronze harpy in the Plaza of Purification with one cast in Dany’s image. She denied him with as much courtesy as she could muster. A pike of unprecedented size had been caught in the Skahazadhan, and the fisherman wished to give it to the queen. She admired the fish extravagantly, rewarded the fisherman with a purse of silver, and sent the pike to her kitchens. A coppersmith had fashioned her a suit of burnished rings to wear to war. She accepted it with fulsome thanks; it was lovely to behold, and all that burnished copper would flash prettily in the sun, though if actual battle threatened, she would sooner be clad in steel. (ADWD Daenerys I)

So, while here she and her people are at least connected by the fact that they understand what she is saying, even this will be undermined later (and they don't have the budget as an excuse for this one; failure to understand items 3 and 4).

Third, as I noted in episode 3.5, why the heck do they have show!Missandei call show!Dany "khaleesi"? It makes no sense since she's not familiar with Dothraki culture and never knew Dany when she was Khal Drogo's wife.

DAENERYS: It’s all right. These people won’t hurt me.

DAENERYS: Fly. Let me pass.

There are differences in the execution of Dany's meeting with the freedmen of Yunkai from books to show. She mounted her silver to meet them and the crowdsurfing never happens:

On the morning of the third day, the city gates swung open and a line of slaves began to emerge. Dany mounted her silver to greet them. [...]

The chant grew, spread, swelled. It swelled so loud that it frightened her horse, and the mare backed and shook her head and lashed her silver-grey tail. It swelled until it seemed to shake the yellow walls of Yunkai. More slaves were streaming from the gates every moment, and as they came they took up the call. They were running toward her now, pushing, stumbling, wanting to touch her hand, to stroke her horse’s mane, to kiss her feet. [...]

She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

What we also miss onscreen is that, onpage, Dany sees the freedmen as her found family and realizes that the moment fulfills a prophecy that she saw in the House of the Undying. I'm going to talk more about this moment later in the section where I comment on D&D's Inside the Episode, though.

Now, we get to this moment, which was (and still is) heavily criticized due to its racism.

An in-depth discussion of the racism in Dany's storyline and in ASOIAF in general goes beyond the scope of this meta; I recommend that you read @yendany's metas instead. It must be acknowledged, of course, that this is a racist scene for employing Moroccan extras as former slaves in order to prop up a British woman and being completely insensitive to Africa's colonial history. However, that's the show's production's fault, which continued to be tone-deaf about race-related issues and diversity in general through the years.

That being said, my main purpose here is to address in which ways the TV series diverged from Dany's character in the books and, consequently, undermined show!Dany. So, instead of talking specifically about the racism in Dany's character and storyline (about which people have already discussed a lot elsewhere), I want to focus, instead, on the ways that the discussion centered around the racism in Dany's character and storyline tends to be uninterested in analyzing the merits of Dany's character and storyline. This reinforces that these detractors' problems most often relate to a) either GRRM and the show's writers and producers rather than to Dany's character herself or b) their own biases:

Dany's abolitionist crusade's humanitarian importance: Do they remember in which ways the slaves were being mistreated, exploited and dehumanized before Dany's interventions?

Dany's character motivations: Do they know that Dany conquered cities just so that she could end slavery rather than because she wanted to exploit Slaver's Bay in any way? Are they aware of the many sacrifices that Dany made in order to free the slaves and rule in Meereen? Do they know that Dany doesn't want the Iron Throne for its own sake, but rather that she wants it so that she can find a home and fulfill her duty towards her ancestors?

Dany's background and identity: Do they take into account that Dany is not just a white woman, but also a former sex slave and a refugee who was forced to culturally assimilate in order to survive and who now belongs nowhere just like the people that she's freed?

Dany's storyline's historical inspirations: Do they know that the slavery that GRRM wrote is primarily inspired by the ancient world and, therefore, is not race-based? Do they know that GRRM himself is tone-deaf about race-related issues and that this is apparent in all of his story?

A holistic view of ASOIAF in order to avoid double standards against Dany: Do they take prevailing cultural norms and other characters' actions into account when they judge Dany's ambition and use of violence negatively? Do they also take into account how Dany's selfless deeds compare to most of the other characters'? Do they also acknowledge and criticize the racism in other characters' storylines?

The vast majority of Dany's detractors (which include D&D) don't take these questions (which do not exhaustively cover all of the misconceptions surrounding her character by any means) into account and/or don't know the text well enough to answer them properly, which means that they are prone to grossly distorting her motivations and/or her storyline's thematic messages in order to address racial issues that should not be used to judge Dany's character because the author himself is unaware of them and does not intend for them to come across. As a result, people lose track of Dany's actual characterization and her storyline's intended social commentary and forget that she is a part of several marginalized groups herself, leading to pretty nonsensical takes in the fandom, such as "Rhaenys should have been Dany".

So, because a) the issue of racism in Dany's storyline was already well-covered elsewhere and b) fandom climate has proven that many people who talk about this issue tend to do so in bad faith, I consciously decided to focus on these five things that should also be remembered in this discussion (and that have more to do with the purpose of this meta anyway).

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.10

Benioff: We see her get an army in episode four, and here in the finale you see her get her people, really, because she's got, she has her Dothraki followers that don't number very many, and she's got the people she's freed from the other cities, but now she is, it's not just - it's something even more, something almost even more religious about it than just a queen, I mean, she's the mother of these people.

Weiss: And it creates a whole new dynamic between her and the people that she's fighting for that she's gonna have to deal with in the future.

Benioff: The way they treat her, the way they lift her up and she is... something that has its... A revelation from a prophecy and that glorious destiny is coming true.

Weiss: Here it seemed like it was really important to let us know just how many people were counting on her to see the full extent of, mostly, the full extent of her army and the tens of thousands of people who flooded out of these gates to pay tribute to her. And then, keeping the dragons in play because they're always such an important part of her identity, we just want to tie all of that together in one great shot.

There's a lot of wrong here, so let's unpack this statement by statement.

We see her get an army in episode four, and here in the finale you see her get her people, really,

As I already noted in episodes 3.4 and 3.5 and will repeat: the show writers seem to have forgotten that thousands of refugees from Astapor chose to follow her to Yunkai, so she had already "[gotten] her people":

Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor.

[...] Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Indeed, her main struggle during the battle of Yunkai was to find a way to take the city and free its slaves and prevent too many of her freedmen from becoming casualties:

Dany considered. The slaver host seemed small compared to her own numbers, but the sellswords were ahorse. She’d ridden too long with Dothraki not to have a healthy respect for what mounted warriors could do to foot. The Unsullied could withstand their charge, but my freedmen will be slaughtered. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

she's got, she has her Dothraki followers that don't number very many,

Dany still considers her Dothraki followers a khalasar in the books and finds their support invaluable despite its small number and what the show writers had her think in the S3 premiere (i.e. that she doesn't have a true khalasar):

Her khalasar was tiny, some thirty-odd mounted warriors, and most of them braidless boys and bentback old men. Yet they were all the horse she had, and she dared not go without them. The Unsullied might be the finest infantry in all the world, as Ser Jorah claimed, but she needed scouts and outriders as well. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

she is, it's not just - it's something even more, something almost even more religious about it than just a queen, I mean, she's the mother of these people.

And it creates a whole new dynamic between her and the people that she's fighting for that she's gonna have to deal with in the future.

Dany was already acting as mhysa way before she was considered one, which we saw from the way she cared about the Lhazareen women to her bloodriders to the slaves in Astapor:

“You heard my words,” she said. “Stop them.” She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki. “Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape.” (AGOT Daenerys VII)

“Sheath your steel, blood of my blood,” said Dany, “this man comes to serve me. Belwas, you will accord all respect to my people, or you will leave my service sooner than you’d wish, and with more scars than when you came.” (ACOK Daenerys V)

“...Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”

“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

One might argue that this event strengthens the sense of responsibility that she already had for these people, but it's not true that there was a radical change in their dynamic after this moment... In the books, it was simply a culmination of what Dany was already doing the whole time.

The way they treat her, the way they lift her up and she is... something that has its... A revelation from a prophecy and that glorious destiny is coming true.

The way that Benioff puts it makes it seem like show!Dany expected the devotion of these people (in a way that seems related to what they assume to be her self-interest and entitlement), which irks me in hindsight knowing that a) they will use this assumption to tear her apart in the last season (after all, one reason why they had show!Dany fall was that she found no love in the North) and b) it's not accurate for her book counterpart.

Is it true that she notices that one prophecy was realized in this moment in the books? Yes.

Ten thousand slaves lifted bloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind. “Mother!” they cried. “Mother, mother!” They were reaching for her, touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped and opened her arms to give herself to them ... (ACOK Daenerys IV)

Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

When it comes to Dany's motivations, though, one must take into account that a) Dany herself is not aware that she has a great destiny (nor does she want to have one) and b) the prophecies are most often intertwined with her desire to find a home, a family, companionship, belonging. This scene is no exception; before it happened, Dany had reflected on how her House would end with her due to her infertility:

She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Fittingly, then, the chapter ends on a more positive note: her found family is now not only composed of dragons, but of thousands of people who she is delighted to meet:

“What are they shouting?”

“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. [...]

Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. “They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. “Mother,” they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. “Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, Mother, Mother!” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

As I said before, this scene is interesting because it associates Dany's role as a queen to her role as a mother. This connection arguably not only relates to gender issues, but also to how Dany's empathy runs so deep that she goes as far as to consider all of the ones who can't protect themselves her children: because she knows what it is like to be in their position, she will be the one who, instead of focusing on heritage and feudal ties and lands, empowers them and keeps them safe as best as she can.

Unfortunately, the show writers never understood any of this because of a) their lack of knowledge of the source material and, in particular, Dany's character, and b) their misogynistic assumption that a powerful and revolutionary woman must be, deep down, vain, selfish, unhinged and reliant on the men around her (even while they're unable to depict her as one).

And then, keeping the dragons in play because they're always such an important part of her identity, we just want to tie all of that together in one great shot.

While it's not untrue that the dragons are an important part of Dany's identity, I can't help but look askance at this statement. D&D thought that it was important to portray show!Dany as helpless without her dragons in season two, after all:

Benioff: Dany is so defined by her dragons, they're so much a part at this point, they define her so much that when they're taken from her, it's almost like she reverts to the pre-dragon Daenerys, you know, everyone is a bit defined by who they were when they were an adolescent, you know, no matter how old you get, no matter how powerful you get, and Daenerys was a scared, timid, abused adolescent and I think when her dragons are taken for her, all those feelings, all those memories and emotions are triggered and come back and all the confidence that she's won over the last several months, it's as if that just evaporates and she's back to being a really frightened little girl. (x)

In the books, Dany doesn't need to be humbled by having her dragons taken from her. Her lesson is the opposite one: she learns that, despite having dragons (which are never taken from her), they are not going to be of help if she wants to gain people's loyalty. Instead, she is going to have to earn people's loyalty, which is why GRRM has Dany's perspective front and center in the books - she is the one who deeply empathizes with the slaves based on her past experiences, she is the one who chooses to start an anti-slavery campaign, she is the one who concocts the battle plans to conquer the cities, she is the one who decides to stay and rule Meereen and so on. The dragons served as the bait to deceive the Astapori masters, but her plan went way beyond the dragons, as well as the ones she made in Yunkai and Meereen.

On HBO, they think that show!Dany is "so defined by her dragons" and that "they're such an important part of her identity" to the point of portraying her as incompetent without them, which they will do again in seasons four and five with their poor adaptation of her ADWD arc (where the dragons were shown as a hindrance and Dany still held things together really well considering the huge problems that she was dealing with). And then, in the end, as we know, they will turn the draconic imagery that once meant freedom in the books (and arguably in this scene as well) into another sign of her villainy in a wing shot that, iconic as it has become, is as subtle as adding devil horns in her head.

Show!Dany's clothes

Does anyone know why is show!Dany using this accessory with her dress? I assume it's a chest pad, but I'm not sure. If anyone has any ideas, please share them with me.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #asoiaf vs got #asos vs got #a storm of swords #s3

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